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Show THE DESERET 42 although several boards have made a successful beginning in that direction. However, the general bt 'i'd has been enabled to assist, undersoil) restrictions, the Stake boards of education by some annual appropriations. In order to bring, as much as possible, the benefits of our educational system within the reach of every child of the Latter day Saints, a system of Religion-classe- s has been devised, intended to be introduced gradually into every Bishops ward, supplementary to the district schools, from whose curriculum religion is excluded. According to the last annual statistical report, our Church school organization consists thus far of three colleges, including a Church normal training school, 23 Stake academies, 9 seminaries, and about 225 and 123 certificated and licensed teachers, several of the former holding diplomas of the academic grade. At the last April Conference, Circular No. S was read and adopted, according to which a University of the Church'of NEWS. students, who have come from sunny Mexico, and from the snow clad hills ol Northern Idaho, to gain the knowledge, spiritual and secular, which they recognize can be obtained in no other school in the great region. The deed of trust was executed October 16, 1875, and President Brigham Young expressly stated that the Bible and other standard works ol the Church should be among the regular text books, and that nothing should be taught in any way conflicting with the principles of the This has been the keynote of Gospel. no endowment and its illustrious founder died beloie he had time to put into execution the plans already matured for its welfare. The board, however, and the faculty, being united and looking upon their labors in the light of a mission, have bravely met and overcome every enobstacle, and the Academy is joying an era of usefulness unprecedented in the history of any college in the land. The efforts of President A. O. Smoot to put the institution upon a firm financial basis, and the disastrous fire that destroyed the old building are too well religion-classe- Jesus Christ of Latter-da- y Saints is tobe established for studies in the higher branches of science and literature, so that the necessity of many of our young people going outside of Zion to qualify themselves for professional pursuits may gradually be obviated, and thereby not only the loss of many a precious soul be prevented, but also those higher studies themselves be taught under the purifying influence of the Spirit of God. Long and weary has our educational journey often seemed to be; but neither the manna from heaven nor the water from out of the rock has been wanting in the experience ol the patient laborers in the cause of the youth of Zion, and now we are climbing up the mountain where, after having surmounted altitudes after altitudes, in knowledge, in purity and in faith, our youth will be able to commune with Jehovah as Moses did of old, and then "Let Zion in her beauty rise, her light begins to shine. Karl The B. Y. G. Maeser. Academy. Piror. IONS length and breadth discloses no term that is more a household word than the name of the Brigham Young Academy. From a humble in spite ot obstacles that beginning, would have overwhelmed an institution not founded upon the principles of the Gospel and guided and sustained by the Spirit of God, it has become the parent of scores of academies and seminaries of learning, the promulgator of all that is noblest and best in education, and it has now within its halls more than 650 its labors, and to this its success is due. A preliminary session of the Academy was inaugurated soon after its establishment with Hon. Warren N. Dusenberry as principal, soon succeeded by Dr. Karl G. Maeser. From beginning with one teacher, the Faculty has increased to thirty-si- x instructors, and from seventeen pupils to a number greater than that in any other three institutions of learning in Utah. The Brigham Young Academy has never been a wealthy institution. It has fi.uFr, .Tn. known to require comment. After struggling for years with accommodations to its work, the Academy has now been located for a year in its new home, a building that for beauty and adaptibil-it- y to its purposes is unsurpassed in the West. For the educational progress of the institution the people of Zion are indebted to the patient, persevering, self-- 1 sacrificing labors of Dr. Karl G. Maeser, whose memory, as the Father of Education in this mountain land, will be as enduring as the hills that look down upon |